Thursday, June 16, 2011

Miss Leishman not engaged to duke

The first report of the romance between Nancy Leishman, the daughter of the American ambassador to Germany, and the Duke of Croy was published in the Berliner Salon, a "popular society weekly," which according to the New York Times, that gave "public currency" to rumors about a pending engagement between Miss Leishman and a "young nobleman."

The Salon reported that a "leading topic of conversation at a ball in the Thiergarten Strasse" in the past week -- the report in New York Times was published on March 15, 1912 -- was Miss Nancy Leishman's "forthcoming betrothal to the Duke of Croy."   The Duke was 23 and a member of the "exclusive Gardes du Corps at Potsdam."

The Salon also reproted that this match would be particularly noteworthy" because it was the first "case on record of a 'Dollar Princess' marrying a European nobleman "richer than herself."

Ambassador Leishman's fortune was estimated at "only" four and five million dollars, but the Duke of Croy's annual income was $250,000.

Ambassador Leishman asked the New York Times' Berlin correspondent to state on his behalf that there was no truth to the report in the Salon that his daughter's engagement to the Duke of Croy or to another "report that she is engaged to the Prince Fugger," a scion of one of the wealthiest noble families.

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